It is desirable to ascertain cornering stiffness of a vehicle tire in order to optimize control commands (active front/rear steering input, yaw control command) to achieve vehicle stability and safety without degrading driver intentions. Heretofore, a robust and high fidelity system and method for determining tire cornering stiffness in real time has not been achieved. Accordingly, there remains a need for a tire cornering stiffness determination system and method that is both robust and accurate and which can adapt to changes to tire conditions during operation of a vehicle.